The Bench Production
This play was staged at Havant Arts Centre, East Street Havant - Bench Theatre's home since 1977.
Characters
| Tom Morrison | Pete Woodward |
| Stella Morrison | Sally Stidever |
| Laura Morrison | Justine Spencer |
| Emma Marchant | Jude Salmon |
| Keith Hermitage | Jim McCarthy |
Crew
| Director | Jacquie Penrose |
| Lighting | Ray Abbott |
| Lighting Operation | Graham Scott, Peter Holding |
| Poster Design | Pete Woodward |
| Set Design | David Penrose |
| Set Construction | David Hemsley-Brown, Vincent Adams |
| Front of House | Peter Corrigan, Ingrid Corrigan |
Director's Notes
Unlike a novel, a play cannot be produced in isolation; it has to be a co-operative exercise. Actors needs the writer's works or they have nothing to say; the writer needs the actor's voice or the play stays silent. The set builders give it shape, the lights are set, costumes assembled, posters distributed, envelopes stuffed and finally the audience arrives to complete the circuit. In this case, though, the co-operative effort went even further, back to the origins of the play itself. Early last year the Bench went on a trip to London to see 'The House of Barnarda Alba', and after the play we ended up in a pub. I got into conversation over a jar with Peter Woodward, and we began speculating on the possibility of taking a series of ideas that Pete has, scripting them, and then seeing the whole process right through to production. Even stone cold sober the idea seemed feasible, and slowly it began to take shape. In the end the task divided into Pete providing themes, ruthlessly perceptive criticism of the growing script, the lead performance, and me providing the plot, the script itself and direction of the production. Last November we gave it a rehearsed reading, after which I revised the script again. It went through the Bench's play selection process, dates were fixed, auditions held, the rest of the team assembled, and the production work began. So here we are, at the end of a long and, for me, rewarding journey from first pint to first night. The hard work of many people make a production possible, but in particular I would like to thank Pete Woodward, without whom this play would not exist at all.
Jacquie Penrose
Reviews
The NewsEdward Peters
Stay-away audiences miss a good knight
Jacquie Penrose's new play opened at Havant last night and it was dreadful - not the play, or the cast, or the set which were all well up to the Bench's normally high standards and better than most comparable provincial theatres - but the lack of audience. 'A Perfect Gentle Knight' is a funny, powerful drama by an exceptional playwright whose perception of the human condition is sparklingly illustrated in her new play, yet less than half the seats in the theatre were full. The explanation must lie in too few people recognizing Ms Penrose's name as that of one of the best authors writing today.
'Gentle Knight' finds planning officer and part-time artist and adulterer Tom Morrison (Peter Woodward) - who inspired many of the play's original ideas) poised to ditch planning and take up his drawing as a living. But when his wife (Sally Stidever) announces she wants to give up her job to pursue writing full-time, Tom capitulates and is plunged into a mid-life crisis.
The situation is further complicated by their daughter (Justine Spencer), whose engagement to a garrulous "Big Banger" who works in the City electrifies her parents ("we're ecstatic" is Stella's sardonic comment). But creepy Keith (Jim McCarthy), whose devotion is to Mammon rather than the arts espoused by his proposed parents-in-law, has some revelations of his own to make which permanently disrupt the household.
The News, 23rd September 1988
